The City Council debacle

Jan 27, 2012 Letters

The Editor,
I am aware of a television programme which featured Minister Norman Whittaker and Mr Keith Burrowes on the National Communications Network over the weekend. These two persons were extremely critical of the administration at City Hall.
I wish to avoid the tedium of a lengthy response except to say briefly the following:
No organization to be responsible for the management of works can be effective throuph the delivery of a satisfactory service without the three basic M’s – Money, Material, and most of all Management.
Many of the criticisms made by the Minister are valid in so far as the facts are concerned. I believe the public and citizens however ought to be aware how the central government has for years tied the hands of the Mayor and City Council by way of example. It took one exhaustive report by the said Keith Burrowes to expose and to have cashiered principal officers, whom we had expressed these concerns about for years.
The Municipality has been in a cash strapped mode for two decades for reasons which are well known.
The incumbent Mayor/Council attempted in earnest to set things right by using the results of the Liburd Report which looked at the Engineering Department, the S.V .Jones Associates, the Lynch report and the findings of, the Canadian consultant Dr. West.
We recommended the Georgetown Development Plan and the Burrowes Report.These important recommendations could hardly be executed without ministerial/government cooperation.
Be reminded that the Interim Management Committee appointed by the PPP Government which managed the City even with the support of Government, declared that the Council could not provide a satisfactory service unless it improved its revenue base, in other words to collect money other than property tax. The rest is history.
ALL of the proposals to broaden our revenue base were rejected by the Central Government.
In so far as the management and the officer corps are concerned many of these officers are aware that there is no Local Government Commission, and that the Mayor and Council can say as much as they wish, but powers of discipline are with the Minister who is vested only with the authority of the Local Government Commission.
The public needs to also be aware of the fact that even as a courtesy, neither Ministers Whittaker nor Ganga Persaud has once met with the Mayor and Councillors.
Instead in breach of all norms of good governance, protocol and decency, they have on a regular basis summoned to their Ministerial offices the three principal officers to wit, the Town Clerk, City Treasurer and Engineer.
There are many things wrong within the administration of the Municipality, but the public must judge the source of the cancer.
Let the public know who are the bullies and who are the brigands.
Hamilton Green, J.P.

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The City Council debacle

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